AppleInsider Staff
Apple on Monday opened up its "Back to School" campaign, with this year's promotion offering $100 and $50 gift cards with a qualifying Mac, iPad or iPhone purchase.
As noted by The Verge, Apple changed its Online Store home page early Tuesday to advertise the start of the promotion, which is now live on the company's website.
For the first time, students can now buy an iPhone to receive a $50 gift card that can be used in the App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore. The same value is also applied to iPad purchases. As in past years, Mac buyers get $100 gift cards with their machines.
To take advantage of the offer, customers must be college students, students accepted to college, parents of a college student or school faculty or staff for any grade level.
The promotional gift cards are included on top of Apple's education pricing, and purchases must be made between July 2, 2013, through September 6, 2013.
Wesley Hilliard
Christine McKee
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Andrew O'Hara
19 Comments
A great promotion for the iPhone. The iPhone 4 and 4S are included in the promotion as well, meaning you can purchase a "free" iPhone 4 and recieve a $50 gift card.
But the price has increased compared with the pre-BTS price. This is so called promotion from apple
I wonder if the Haswell Retina Macbook Pros will come out in time for this?
Another clever way to clear the channel of phone and iPad inventory in the ramp to new models (tho' I imagine you CAN get a brandy new Haswell MBA?? That's cool.).
Also, of value in any case to those on a budget willing to accept soon to be last year's mobile models (at least that was the limitation when I bought)..... ...so fair inducement (I haven't heard of any pre-BTS price increases noted by one poster - who was making his first post).
....I got my first iBook (and first Mac of any kind) and iPod in 2004 that way. Bigger deal then - a $100 mail-in rebate, plus other deals or rebates on Photoshop 5 and Office '04 - AND a free Canon Pixma printer (I think - or at least a great deal) (after filling out a boat load of complicated paperwork requiring cutting SKU's off the shipping boxes with a utility knife and sending everything to four separate fulfillment companies and waiting 8 weeks at least.)....
...so I get the drill. It's not a favor, but the math worked for Apple and me. Even if Apple's cachet and success has made the offers more modest over time.
Bottom line, Apple's characteristically excellent handling of inventory management from design to component procurement, assembly, introduction, delivery, cash flow, margin, etc., through end of lifetime of each SKU that's arguably the best in the industry. I.e., another reason they're not "doomed" any time soon yet.
Another undoubtable sign for WS criminals that Apple is doomed...